Stephen Berry - The Battle for Terra Two

Back in his chair, D'Trelna poured another drink for himself. "Join me, H'Nar.' He indicated the captain's almost untouched glass.

As L'Wrona sat on the armchair, blaster in hand, D'Trelna slipped the commwand into the desktop reader. "Computer," he said, "scan, read aloud and file contents to main memory, command access only."

They listened for the rest of the watch, D'Trelna making an occasional note on his desk pad. When it ended, the shield was back up and the brandy half gone.

"So," said D'Trelna, setting down his pen, "if this is all true, we need Harrison."

"If it's true," said L'Wrona, "yes."

"We'll have to brief the Terrans," said D'Trelna.

"And our ambassador?"

"After the Terrans," said D'Trelna firmly.

"He'll scream," said L'Wrona.

"Let him. Security of the Confederation-military priority."

"Communications," said the commodore into the commlink, "get me the American Central Intelligence Director, Bill Sutherland." He ganced at the time readout, doing a quick conversion. "He's probably at home, asleep. Get him up. Tell him we've one last world to win."

"Hear from Zahava?" asked McShane, helping himself to another cup of John's coffee.

"Early yesterday." Using a fork, he slid the waffles from the little electric oven onto the two plastic microwave plates. "There's a seven-hour time difference between here and Israel."

"How's her sister doing?"

"Better. Cardiac's a tricky thing, though. "Syrup?" he asked, putting a plate in front of McShane.

They faced each other across the breakfast bar; McShane stolid, white-bearded, with red suspenders stretching from the top of his corduroys over his blue flannel shirt; John, thirty years his junior, in faded jeans and a red cardigan.

"No, thank you. No waffle, either." He pushed the food back, thumb and forefinger to the plate edge. "TV-dinner plates, pop-up breakfasts. You're living on this swill?"

"Not worth cooking for one," said John, squeezing a layer of cold syrup across the waffle. The sunlight flood- ing the kitchen lent the topping the look of thick, yellowed varnish.

"When's she coming home?" asked McShane, adding milk to his coffee.

"It could be a few months. Natie's got two kids and there's no one else to help.

"What brings you to the Hill so early in the day, Bob?"

"Checkup." He tapped his chest. "Iron-poor blood or something. I'm not twenty-nine anymore, but I shouldn't need a four-hour nap every afternoon."

The phone rang. John reached out, taking the receiver from the wall. He listened for a few seconds, then hung up.

"Wrong number?" asked Bob, sipping his coffee. John shook his head. "My former employer, I think."

"You think?"

"A voice I've never heard hit me with a hot-shit authenticator and the words 'Gather at the river. Thirty minutes.' "

"What, the Potomac?"

"Yes. I know where-it's a stretch along the canal in Georgetown."

"When I was a boy," said McShane, "back in the Pleistocene, kids used to run off to join the circus. Your crowd ran off to join the CIA." He set his cup down. "Are you driving?"

"No." John rose, taking the dishes to the sink. "Car's in the shop for a brake job."

"I can drop you at Foggy Bottom." He tucked in the bar stool. "Wear your mitties-it's cold out there."

"You need a what?" Harrison stared at Sutherland. "A hero," said the CIA Director. "We need a hero."

"A hero's a sandwich, Bill." He watched as a sudden gust sent a yellow-red cloud of maple leaves swirling into the canal. "Or a word in a eulogy."

A chill October wind had driven all but the hardiest joggers from the towpath. More would venture out later, after work, but for now the two men had the Georgetown riverfront to themselves.

"Guan-Sharick can get you there," said Sutherland, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his camel-hair topcoat. "You have to get yourself back."

"By taking the other end of this Shalan's portal?"

"Yes."

"Why me? Why not a transmute?" As they walked, he turned the collar of his parka against the wind. "Our old buddy Guan-Sharick could just rip out some poor bastard's mind, imitate him, turn this resistance movement against Shalan-Actal and his base." Stooping, he picked up a flat stone. "Find another hero, Bill. I've retired." He skimmed the weathered shale across the brackish canal surface, one-two-three. It sank midchannel.

"There's no one else," said Sutherland. "And Guan-Sharick can't steal a dead man's mind." He took the photo from his pocket. "Here's who you'd be replacing."

John stared at the snapshot. The man was in his midthirties, sandy-haired, blue-eyed, with a familiar ironic grin. He wore a jet-black dress uniform and high-peaked cap with gleaming visor. "Me," said John. "Only not me." He looked up. "My double on Terra Two?"

"Your dead double," said the CIA Director, taking back the photo. "Major Harrison was killed in a motorcycle accident last week. Very T. E. Lawrence, but very bad timing. He'd just finished his doctoral dissertation at McGill and was to report to his new post in Boston."

"Guan-Sharick was going to replace him?"

Sutherland nodded. "He saw the accident and disposed of the body. Then he flicked through Shalan's portal and appealed to D'Trelna and L'Wrona for help."

"Now that I'd like to have seen," smiled John. The smile faded. "So in another reality, I'm a corpse."

He pointed to the photo. "What's that shroud he's wearing?"

"Class-A uniform-CIA Counter Insurgency Brigade. Sort of a yankee doodle Waffen SS, now fighting in Mexico."

"Mexico?"

"But he's been seconded to the Urban Command garrison in Boston as intelligence officer." Sutherland laughed at Harrison's expression. "You're going to love Terra Two, John."

"I'm not going to Terra Two." He looked across the Potomac, watching as a jet skirted the towers in Rosslyn, heading in to National Airport.

The CIA Director's smile faded. "No one else can do it. If you don't go, bugs and killer machines will come swarming into this reality. They have to be stopped on Terra Two. And you're elected. Or rather, Major Harrison with his ganger connections is."

"I won't ask what a ganger is, Bill," said John, facing Sutherland. "And I'm not elected-I wasn't running. I don't work for you anymore, I don't free-lance anymore, and I don't believe anything Guan-Sharick would say."

"We have to assume he's telling the truth," said Sutherland. "To not do so would be criminally irresponsible."

"You're saying I'm irresponsible?"

It was Sutherland's turn to gaze across the river. "You left the Outfit in a tiff…"

Harrison's face flushed, not from the cold. "No one pisses my people away."

"And you were getting bored with the free-lance stuff when the K'Ronarins showed up," continued the director. "Then the biofab war, that battle under the moon. Blasters, mindslavers, starships, Pocsym, S'Cotar. Then it ended. Boom." He turned back to Harrison. "You married your Israeli friend, wrote a book about the biofab war and made an obscene amount of money."

"Am making."

"And now that you're the only one in this whole frigging universe that may be able to save it…"

"Really, Bill."

"You won't go. Why not?" He snapped out the last two words, like a drill instructor.

"I don't want to die," said John easily. "That's a one-way trip."

"You haven't a choice, buddy. You go, or we all die."

"I have a choice."

"Crock," said Sutherland. He held out the tan attache case. "Take this. Read it. It's everything Guan-Sharick gave the K'Ronarins. Give it back to me tomorrow at nine, along with your decision. Scholl's Restaurant on K Street- toward the back."

John took it. They walked in silence to the footbridge, crossed it and stepped down into the hilly side street. "Can I drop you?" said Sutherland. "Long walk to Capitol Hill."